Trai extends deadline for comments on net neutrality issue

A program that had been giving free basic Internet services to over three million Egyptians was shut down on Wednesday, social media site Facebook said.

Zuckerberg has cheerleaded for the service before, saying that Free Basics does not block or throttle other services or create fast lanes – two things net neutrality advocates oppose.

Facebook partner Reliance, a wireless carrier, is offering free internet access via Facebook’s Free Basics service to millions of Indians. Only 252 million of India’s 1.3 billion people have Internet access, making it a growth market for firms including Google and Facebook. IAMAI also counts Facebook as a member, which has been at the centre of the storm brewing around net neutrality, and has been slammed for driving a campaign supporting its “Free Basics” programme, which is seen as violating net neutrality.

It has cited examples of different termination fee charged for SMS of different kinds, Doordarshan channels shown free to viewers and subsidy provided under universal service obligation rules for increasing telecom services access in rural area.

Facebook’s Free Basics program was launched with Etisalat Egypt. The service, which has attracted much controversy, provides users with free access to select websites on mobile phones.

Will there be another extension to the deadline for sending comments on your paper for differential pricing, as you have received a large number of comments, mostly from Facebook users? However, a majority of these responses -around 14 lakh – did not provide any answer to the questions posed by the regulator, and supported Free Basics.

Facebook says it wants to help people in developing countries get online.

The telecom regulatory authority of India (TRAI) has so far received 18.72 lakh responses to its consultation paper on differential pricing for data services. The move came after one regulator requested an investigation into Free Basics and whether it could threaten the future of net neutrality in India.

If Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is to have its way with Free Basics, it will have to address all the net neutrality concerns already raised.

Indicating that the whole consultation process could have been hijacked, Sharma said: “It is like we have asked Question X and they have given answer to the Question Y”.